TV advertisinghttp://www.adweek.com/taxonomy/term/9763/all
enStudy Finds Mercedes Advertising Outperforms Competitors Across the Boardhttp://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/study-finds-mercedes-advertising-outperforms-competitors-across-board-161195
Lauren Johnson<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/mercedes-2015-hed-2014.jpg"> <p>
Over the past few months, Mercedes&#39; digital team has nimbly worked <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/10-best-branded-instagram-videos-week-160358" target="_blank">a number</a> of <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/how-9-fashion-week-sponsors-fared-social-year-160122" target="_blank">social platforms</a> to build brand awareness. But a new study launching today from Phoenix Marketing International finds that the German automaker is also killing it across the board in advertising&mdash;including television, print, digital and out-of-home.</p>
<p>
The research measures reactions from more than 250,000 advertisements over the past 18 months from luxury automotive brands. Four automakers fall into the study&#39;s luxury automaker category: Lexus, Mercedes, Audi and BMW. It&rsquo;s important to note that the research does not include super-high-end luxury brands like Ferrari, Bentley and Lamborghini.</p>
<p>
Phoenix Marketing International&rsquo;s research asked roughly 2,000 online users each month to look at and respond to ads. The data asked consumers to recall an ad and if there was a lift in brand impression. Consumer response and emotional impact from creative were also examined. The research tracked consumers&rsquo; reactions to ads across all mediums, but Dennis Syrkowski, president of automotive at Phoenix Marketing International, noted that broadcast ads in particular perform well for Mercedes.</p>
<p>
Over the past year and a half, Mercedes has introduced two new cars&mdash;the E Class and M Class&mdash;and rolled out new <a href="http://www.daimler.com/brands-and-products/our-brands/mercedes-benz-pass-cars" target="_blank">brand image</a> and sales event ads.</p>
<p>
&quot;We didn&rsquo;t compare historically to any prior period, but based on the data we&#39;ve been tracking, this does represent an improved performance for Mercedes at a time that was very important to them in the market,&quot; said Dennis Syrkowski, president of automotive at Phoenix Marketing International.</p>
<p>
Thirty percent of consumers who watched a Mercedes ad recalled the brand, up from the 29 percent average for luxury automakers. Thirty percent of respondents who watched the German automaker&rsquo;s ads said that a promo lifted brand impression compared to a 26 percent industry norm for the luxury category.</p>
<p>
Mercedes also outperformed in lift to purchase consideration, likeability and salience. Ninety-five percent of respondents identified the brand correctly, while 96 percent of respondents said the same for the luxury automotive industry in general.</p>
<p>
The research also zeroed in on in-market activity measuring if consumers took an action as a result of seeing an ad. Forty-three percent of consumers who recalled the brand took an additional action&mdash;including visiting a dealer, looking for additional information or interacting digitally with other consumers about the brand. To compare, 38 percent of consumers who saw an ad from a luxury automotive brand in general made a secondary action.</p>
<p>
Creatively, Mercedes beat the luxury automotive norm for all categories, including engagement, relevance, styling and cognitive recognition. While Mercedes reigns in luxury, Syrkowski singled out Subaru and Toyota as non-luxury brands that also have great creative campaigns.</p>
<p>
&quot;Creatively, if I look at how they&rsquo;re over-performing, there are other brands in the non-luxury space that do as well<span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">,&quot; Syrkowski noted</span><span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">, &quot;but they don&rsquo;t compete with Mercedes.&quot;</span></p>
Advertising & BrandingTechnologyautomakersAutomotive advertisingbrand recallDennis SyrkowskiLauren JohnsonMercedesPhoenix Marketing InternationalTV advertisingWed, 05 Nov 2014 14:34:39 +0000161195 at http://www.adweek.comTwitter's TV Ad Targeting Uses 'Video Fingerprinting'http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/twitters-tv-ad-targeting-uses-video-fingerprinting-149740
Christopher Heine<p>
Twitter today announced a new program designed to help brands sync up television ads and <a href="http://&lt;iframe width=&quot;560&quot; height=&quot;315&quot; src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/embed/Lzxlo6_AkF0&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;" target="_blank">Promoted Tweets</a>&nbsp;through the use of a cutting-edge&nbsp;&quot;video fingerprinting&quot; technology.</p>
<p>
Via a data dashboard, digital marketers can see in real time when their spots air and what resulting tweet activity occurs about either the brand or TV show. Then, at least in theory, they can more intelligently target Twitter users with Promoted Tweets based on who tweeted about the commercial or show. Per the San Francisco-based firm, marketers can use the data to inform not only the timeliness of their Promoted Tweets but also the creative (e.g., copy, GIFs, Vine, etc.).&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The tech giant said the system is available to a small number of partners currently running TV commercials in the United States. A video posted by Twitter (watch below) suggests <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trident_(gum)" target="_blank">Trident</a> gum is one of the testing brands.</p>
<p>
In a blog <a href="http://advertising.twitter.com/2013/05/Amplify-TV-commercials-on-Twitter-Premiering-TV-ad-targeting.html" target="_blank">post</a> this morning, Twitter credited the February acquisition of <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/social-data-uncovers-brand-tv-show-affinity-137243" target="_blank">Bluefin Labs</a> for enabling the program as well as its &quot;TV Ads&quot; dashboard. Twitter said its video fingerprinting technology detects when and where a brand&#39;s commercials are running on TV.</p>
<p>
According to the post by Michael Fleischman, Twitter product manager for revenue, the program doesn&#39;t require advertisers &quot;to do any manual tracking or upload media plan details. Whenever a commercial airs during a TV show, Twitter not only determines where and when it ran, but can identify users on Twitter who tweeted about the program where the ad aired during that program. We believe a user engaged enough with a TV show to tweet about it very likely saw the commercials as well.&quot;</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, Twitter today also unveiled new broadcast partnerships with BBC America, Fox, Fuse and The Weather Channel, enabling the media firms to promote television clips on the social platform. Twitter has been testing the program, now formally dubbed Twitter Amplify, in recent weeks with ESPN and Turner.</p>
<p>
The pair of moves&mdash;both the video fingerprinting for brands and the Amplify product for TV networks, mark the latest in Twitter&#39;s aggressive push to become the default social companion to TV. It seems clear that Twitter sees an opportunity to put distance between itself and Facebook on this front.</p>
<p>
To see the full list of Twitter Amplify partners, click <a href="http://advertising.twitter.com/2013/05/Twitter-Amplify-partnerships-Great-content-great-brands-great-engagement.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Lzxlo6_AkF0" width="560"></iframe></p>
TechnologyA&eBBC AmericaBloomberg TelevisionBlue Fin LabsClear ChannelChristopher HeinediscoveryFoxFox NewsFuseMlbNational CineMediaNew York MagazinePGA TOURSocial adssocial media marketingTV advertisingTwitterTwittervicewarner musicWeather ChannelWweThu, 23 May 2013 16:02:02 +0000149740 at http://www.adweek.comKawasaki and 'Lone Ranger' Ride Together in Multifaceted Campaignhttp://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/kawasaki-and-lone-ranger-ride-together-multifaceted-campaign-149732
Christopher Heine<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/kawasaki-motorcycle-hed-2013.jpg"> <p>
If you&#39;ve never throttled-up a dirt bike or a four-wheeler across an open terrain but have ridden a horse, well, they&#39;re similarly bumpy-but-fun experiences. So Kawasaki&#39;s new partnership with <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/disney-launches-story-app-aimed-moms-149078" target="_blank">Disney&#39;s</a> gallop-happy <a href="http://www.google.com/#gs_rn=14&amp;gs_ri=psy-ab&amp;gs_mss=youtube%20trailer%20lon&amp;cp=20&amp;gs_id=26&amp;xhr=t&amp;q=youtube+trailer+lone+ranger&amp;es_nrs=true&amp;pf=p&amp;safe=off&amp;biw=1222&amp;bih=609&amp;sclient=psy-ab&amp;oq=youtube+trailer+lone&amp;gs_l=&amp;pbx=1&amp;bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&amp;bvm=bv.46751780,d.dmg&amp;fp=865db3d5dbd71798" target="_blank">Lone Ranger</a> flick&mdash;starring <a href="http://talent.adweek.com/gallery/JOHNNY-DEPP/8040913" target="_blank">Johnny Depp</a> as Tonto and <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/armie-hammer-cinemacons-male-star-426372" target="_blank">Armie Hammer</a> as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Ranger" target="_blank">masked man</a>&mdash;to push the brand&#39;s motorcycles and off-road vehicles makes a bit of sense, doesn&#39;t it?</p>
<p>
&quot;It&#39;s actually a big step for us, stepping out with a tent-pole movie with Disney,&quot; Chris Brull, marketing director at <a href="http://www.adweek.com/video/kawasaki-motors-corp-office-123429" target="_blank">Kawasaki</a>, told Adweek. &quot;Typically, we keep our promotions within the power-sport industry. Our bikes are normally driven by enthusiasts, whether it be two-wheelers or four-wheelers. With this campaign, we are associating with other premium brands. Simply, all of the people who buy our motor bikes also purchase movie tickets.&quot;</p>
<p>
His San Diego-based company&#39;s integrated campaign debuts today. But interestingly, the Disney deal involves a third partner, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/data-points-sandwich-hero-137637" target="_blank">Subway</a>, which will adorn its point-of-sale counters and windows with the Kawasaki and <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/lone-ranger-trailer-johnny-depp-armie-hammer-376117" target="_blank">Lone Ranger</a> brands in its 26,000 stores nationwide while leading up to the movie&#39;s July 3 release date. Additionally, Kawasaki and the film will appear via the quick-serve sandwich chain&#39;s TV and digital advertising.</p>
<p>
&quot;We are working very closely with Subway,&quot; Brull explained. &quot;About 34 million head into those stores during a week&mdash;so that definitely made sense from a business standpoint.&quot;</p>
<p>
In an effort led by Chicago-based agency <a href="http://www.tris3ct.com/" target="_blank">Tris3ct</a>, 30-second TV spots will run during live sports on CBS and NBC, as well as ESPN and ESPN2, highlighting Kawasaki&#39;s Ninja bike, KX dirt bike and <a href="http://www.kawasaki.com/Products/product-specifications.aspx?id=556" target="_blank">Teryx4</a> off-road vehicle. The commercials will live online, too, along with a Web-only teaser video. The campaign involves 15-second pre-roll promos and companion display ads on various publisher sites. Local radio inventory is also being purchased, while print ads are running in <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/press/hearst-sells-cycle-world-135352" target="_blank">Cycle World</a> and Off-Road Adventure magazines.</p>
<p>
A text-and-win mobile sweepstakes will be in play, offering 500 free Lone Ranger tickets. And a grand prize winner&mdash;who gets a <a href="http://www.kawasaki.com/Products/product-specifications.aspx?id=556" target="_blank">Teryx4</a>&mdash;will be announced in the coming weeks on Good Morning America while getting pushed at GMA.Yahoo.com. Subway will promote the sweeps as well.</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, Brull said his brand syncs up with the movie on multiple levels. &quot;Our products align well with that Johnny Depp swagger,&quot; he said. &quot;There&#39;s an outdoors-lifestyle element that registers, too.&quot;</p>
<p>
Speaking of outside, with a Lone Ranger campaign that essentially began during <a href="http://www.deadline.com/2013/01/lone-ranger-super-bowl-ad-sneak-peek/" target="_blank">Super Bowl season</a>, one should probably expect &quot;Hi-yo, Silver! Away!&quot; to be yelled much more often than usual from the park playgrounds and front yards of America this summer.&nbsp;</p>
Advertising & BrandingMarketingArmie HammerCbsChris BrullCycle WorldChristopher HeineDisplay advertisingEspnESPN2Johnny DeppKawasakiLone RangerNbcOff-Road Adventurepoint-of-sale signageprint advertisingradio advertisingretail advertisingSubwayTV advertisingwindow signageThu, 23 May 2013 10:00:03 +0000149732 at http://www.adweek.comThe Man Who Took on Nielsenhttp://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/man-who-took-nielsen-148110
Sam Thielman<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/fea-mandel-hed-2013.jpg"> <p>
It&rsquo;s about 9 p.m. New York time, and Jon Mandel is in Seattle, on the phone, telling a story about the story the Nielsen ratings weren&rsquo;t telling.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It was Danny Abraham,&rdquo; he says, speaking about billionaire Slim-Fast magnate S. Daniel Abraham. &ldquo;I was presenting a buy&mdash;I&rsquo;ll never forget this&mdash;it was a daytime network buy,&rdquo; Mandel says, rapidly shifting into high gear. &ldquo;It was ABC, CBS and NBC. What are they trying to do? They&rsquo;re trying to reach young women. NBC was more expensive, but it made sense because it was women 18-49. But Danny always looked at the unit cost.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Mandel pauses for breath. &ldquo;I wish you could type in one of those New York Jewish accents: &lsquo;<em>There you go, confusing me with that ratings shit</em>,&rsquo;&rdquo; Abraham said to Mandel. &ldquo;&lsquo;<em>If the cash register rings, we&rsquo;ll do more. If it doesn&rsquo;t ring, we&rsquo;ll do something else</em>.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s what the business is about, and we&rsquo;ve cluttered it up with GRPs and all these proxies.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Mandel, who spent his career as a media buyer before joining forces with Nielsen for a time, is now the CEO of <a href="http://www.precisiondemand.com/" target="_blank">PrecisionDemand</a>, an analytics company that breaks down several different data sets into recommendations on which network to buy ad space, how much of it to buy and for which time slot&mdash;all with the goal of making, as Abraham put it, the cash registers ring.</p>
<p>
The process, for those unfamiliar with the purchase of TV advertising, goes something like this: Advertisers buy airtime from networks in the form of gross ratings points (GRPs) measured by Nielsen, which break down viewership by age, sex and other broad segments. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s X-million dollars,&rdquo; you tell the network. &ldquo;Run my ad on your new show every week at 7 p.m. until it&rsquo;s been seen by at least 4 percent of women 18-49 watching TV at that hour, since that&rsquo;s the consumer set market researchers tell me buys my product.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
As with other companies (including TRA, Simulmedia and Invidi), PrecisionDemand gives advertisers a data set to use as an overlay, telling them which of those GRPs is more valuable to the client&rsquo;s specific needs&mdash;because there are enormous differences.</p>
<p>
Women watching Bravo, for example, have far more money than women watching soap operas, though they fit into the same Nielsen demographic. If a retailer doesn&rsquo;t have stores on the West Coast but half of the network&rsquo;s viewers are in Los Angeles, then clearly half the advertiser&rsquo;s money is wasted. Without analysis to tell them which networks, programs and time slots are most likely to reach and appeal to a client, then marketers are simply buying points for &ldquo;women 18-49,&rdquo; measured with a yardstick Mandel maintains is only &ldquo;40 to 60 percent effective.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Industry grousing about Nielsen ratings has gotten louder in recent years as TV viewership has become fragmented and smaller demographic measurements have become more valuable. One Nielsen executive, who asked not to be identified for this story, extols the virtues of the company&rsquo;s ratings panel, which tracks the behavior of 22,000 households and projects statistics down to the thousands for the 111 million homes with televisions in the U.S.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The mistake, I think, that&rsquo;s made is that consistent is accurate,&rdquo; says the exec, who admits that &ldquo;as the ratings get more and more dispersed, we need a larger sample size,&rdquo; adding that Nielsen has several initiatives planned to increase GRP accuracy.</p>
<!--pagebreak-->
<p>
<strong>IF YOU CAN&#39;T BEAT &lsquo;EM&hellip;</strong></p>
<p>
Mandel is familiar with the selling points for Nielsen&rsquo;s GRPs&mdash;after all, he used to sell them.</p>
<p>
Long before PrecisionDemand, Mandel made his living off the Nielsen ratings. A longtime national TV media buyer for <a href="http://www.grey.com/" target="_blank">Grey Advertising</a>, he ultimately became CEO shortly after Grey funneled its media buying and planning business into MediaCom. Over that 30-year span, Mandel acted not merely as the middleman preaching the virtues of Nielsen ratings to clients but as head middleman.</p>
<p>
<img alt="" src="/files/fea-mandel-01-2013.jpg" style="width: 325px; height: 1014px; float: right; margin: 10px;" /> Mandel ultimately grew disenchanted with the inadequacies of TV measurement and in 2006 joined Nielsen, where, he says, he hoped he could effect change at the research giant (Nielsen gathers all manner of data beyond TV ratings; recent reports say it is now incorporating consumer banking data into its mix). There, he headed an internal division, <a href="/node/98355">NielsenConnect,</a> designed to generate new and deeper research by fusing data from disparate parts of the company. &ldquo;They were really just a bunch of fiefdoms that didn&rsquo;t work together,&rdquo; Mandel relates. &ldquo;What they wanted to do was put together the data &hellip; I thought they wanted me to save Nielsen, and it gave me a chance to tie the purchase data into the ratings data, to tie it all to the cash register.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
What he found, he says, was a mess. Mandel claims to have identified 14 different healthcare subsidiaries within Nielsen, all operating independently of one another. (A source close to the situation says that number is improbable.) Added to that, the methodology bothered him.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m talking to the consumer side,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;and they&rsquo;re insisting to me that the use of menopause products among boys 6-11 are spiking, and I said, &lsquo;That&rsquo;s not right.&rsquo; And they said, &lsquo;No, look at the data.&rsquo;&rdquo; (A source could not confirm or deny the account but says Mandel may be conflating two separate incidents). Ultimately, the time came to present a report featuring findings about menopausal grade schoolers to one of the company&rsquo;s higher-ups. Rather than fix the data, Mandel recalls, somebody said, &ldquo;Just take it off the chart. Don&rsquo;t show him that.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;They were doing things garbage-in, garbage-out,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;If it came out of the computer, it was great! I couldn&rsquo;t live with that. And I realized, wait, I&rsquo;m here to save Nielsen and God can&rsquo;t save this place.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Dave Thomas, a self-described Mandel fan who worked with him at Nielsen, argues that the company&rsquo;s problems are complicated by clients (read: the networks) that are leery of change. &ldquo;Everybody wants a bigger sample size, but nobody wants to pay more,&rdquo; Thomas says. &ldquo;Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
<strong><strong>A BETTER BRAND OF DATA?</strong></strong></p>
<p>
Mandel&rsquo;s beef with Nielsen, one industry vet points out, is something of a self-serving pitch&mdash;the old I-was-blind-but-now-I-see gambit. Mandel, onetime champion of Nielsen ratings and a veteran of the advertising world, is here to tell you that he used to sell you snake oil but has discovered something better. In person and over the phone, Mandel does not come off as gleeful or disingenuous, though; he sounds tired, and even a little angry.</p>
<p>
Is this all part of a new con? Some may think so. But there&rsquo;s also the matter of his new product actually working. Adweek called as many PrecisionDemand clients as we could find (many of them in the direct response business), and they generally believe this is the way of the future. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re changing the landscape of media buying,&rdquo; says Jessica Abramson, senior director of consumer marketing at streaming music service <a href="http://www.rhapsody.com/start" target="_blank">Rhapsody</a>. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t doubt that in several years, the entire industry is revamped.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Abramson says her company was involved with PrecisionDemand back when it was Proceed Media&mdash;just a few rocket scientists (literally&mdash;we&rsquo;ll get to that in a moment) crunching some data&mdash;and was very happy with it. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a legitimate and trackable channel for us to grow our business,&rdquo; she explains. &ldquo;No one really truly knows the effect that TV has, whether it&rsquo;s moving product or digital subscriptions.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
<!--pagebreak--></p>
<p>
<img alt="" src="/files/fea-mandel-02-2013.jpg" style="float: right; margin: 10px; height: 1284px; width: 290px;" /> Indeed, even the prospect of analytics-driven media buying is a great relief to many of Mandel&rsquo;s clients. &ldquo;Saying that people who look alike act alike&mdash;it&rsquo;s borderline offensive, right? You people all act alike!&rdquo; cracks Sean Baenen, CMO of ClearChoice, a company that makes and sells pricey dental implants. Baenen says he&rsquo;s impressed chiefly because he sees a lot of analytics firms claiming to be tech companies but having the same culture as Madison Avenue when what he really wants is Silicon Valley.</p>
<p>
It&rsquo;s important, he says, for new thinking to come from outside, because too much of the ad business has grown complacent. He points to the music world as an example. &ldquo;The record industry had to be changed by the tech business,&rdquo; he points out. &ldquo;It was never going to be changed by the record industry.&rdquo; </p>
<p>
But what&rsquo;s so special about the numbers being crunched at this one company? To start, where other companies mine data and then apply it, PrecisionDemand is agnostic. It uses material from everywhere. It has a partnership with data-gathering giant Acxiom and uses information purchased from Experian, Personix and Rentrak, set-top box stats bought from several smaller cable companies, vehicle registration information, loyalty card data&mdash;pretty much every source of purchasable information its researchers can get their hands on. How those data sets are weighted depends on which of them best identifies the customer base for a given client. The company also handles media buying for its clients, obviating the need for the industry&rsquo;s endorsement of its methodology.</p>
<p>
Sifting through that data is punishing, but Mandel&rsquo;s team (&ldquo;my nerds,&rdquo; he calls them) is holed up in Seattle, spreadsheeting away.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I [had] a guy who works for NASA&mdash;that&rsquo;s one I always work into a new business pitch,&rdquo; he says. The NASA guy&rsquo;s commitment to precision stands in contrast to how derelict in their duties TV researchers have become, Mandel says. &ldquo;You Snoopy-dance if you&rsquo;re within 10 percent in this business,&rdquo; he gripes. &ldquo;If my guy was off by one-tenth of 1 percent [when he was working on the Mars Rover project], he&rsquo;d have blown right by Mars.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
<strong><strong>WHAT BROUGHT HIM BACK</strong></strong></p>
<p>
Interestingly, Mandel says he didn&rsquo;t even want to join PrecisionDemand. He had quit Nielsen in a rage. (Here&rsquo;s the quote he gave the press when he left: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to say anything negative about the Nielsen Company, but I never understood the humor in Dilbert cartoons before, and now I think they&rsquo;re the funniest things I&rsquo;ve ever seen.&rdquo;) Instead, he embarked on something like a permanent fishing trip on his beloved boat off Long Island, away from people who annoy him and stuff he didn&rsquo;t want to deal with.</p>
<p>
Eventually, his pal Doug McCormick, former CEO of Lifetime and NBCU&rsquo;s iVillage, called asking for a read on a company in which his firm was looking to invest. That company was PrecisionDemand (McCormick sits on its board). After he signed off on the methodology, Mandel was asked to be CEO.</p>
<p>
It was his daughter who talked him into it. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re an old fart and you&rsquo;ve been talking about this for years,&rdquo; Mandel recalls her saying. &ldquo;You get a cocktail in you and you talk about GRPs and all this stuff. What have you done? Nobody&rsquo;s going to remember you. You bought media; now you want a legacy.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
So this, Mandel decided, would be it.</p>
<p>
The jury&rsquo;s still out on whether Mandel&rsquo;s so-called legacy is in fact the Holy Grail of media research.</p>
Advertising & BrandingTelevisionMarketingBravoCableDanny AbrahamSam ThielmanData IssueDoug McCormickGrey GroupGRPJessica AbramsonJon MandelMagazine ContentMediaMedia BuyingNetworksNielsenNielsenConnectRatingsResearchSlim-FastThe Data IssueTV advertisingMon, 25 Mar 2013 03:39:05 +0000148110 at http://www.adweek.comFacebook Craves Conversions More Than Clickshttp://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-craves-conversions-more-clicks-148050
Tim Peterson<p>
Facebook isn&rsquo;t crazy about clicks as digital advertising&rsquo;s be-all, end-all performance metric. Rather,&nbsp;the company&nbsp;is more concerned with conversions.</p>
<p>
In the&nbsp;fall, Facebook <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;ved=0CDUQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F6cc4cf0a-0584-11e2-9ebd-00144feabdc0.html&amp;ei=0dNIUbvcDYqPiAL_l4CYAw&amp;usg=AFQjCNHCgcRV44rMqo5963IhfdE5FRU81g&amp;sig2=ZoypqXnjY2LckGVxP0qveQ&amp;bvm=bv.44011176,d.cGE" target="_blank">partnered</a> with data provider Datalogix to launch a tool&nbsp;that helps&nbsp;advertisers figure out how many ads it should show a given user. The tool compiles this Goldilocks recipe based on Facebook&rsquo;s ad impression data and Datalogix&rsquo;s offline purchase data. Now, Facebook is opening up a bit about results.</p>
<p>
Across 29 campaigns, Facebook found that splitting households into four subgroups based on&nbsp;how much&nbsp;they&rsquo;ve purchased a brand&rsquo;s products or a product in a given category has&nbsp;produced an average 22 percent&nbsp;lift in profits, said Brad Smallwood, the company&rsquo;s vp of measurement and insights, in a preview of a presentation he&#39;ll make today&nbsp;at the Advertising Research Foundation&rsquo;s Re:think 2013 conference.</p>
<p>
In an interview with Adweek before the presentation, Smallwood acknowledged that not all advertisers will&nbsp;achieve&nbsp;such results&nbsp;given the number of variables involved in constructing the Goldilocks recipe. Instead, the idea is to&nbsp;change how advertisers&nbsp;view digital advertising, which obviously includes ads on Facebook. That is, to get away from a narrow focus on an ad&rsquo;s immediate return on investment (did it get enough clicks to justify its cost?) and refocus on whether it fulfilled a brand&rsquo;s ultimate goals (read: sales).</p>
<p>
As a hypothetical example of what the Facebook-Datalogix tool can do, Charmin could&nbsp;determine the number of ads it should show someone who regularly buys their toilet paper compared with someone who doesn&rsquo;t buy their toilet paper, someone who buys a lot of toilet paper but isn&rsquo;t loyal to any brand and someone who doesn&rsquo;t really buy toilet paper (i.e., a gross person). Charmin could then retool their ad buy to make sure they&rsquo;re not wasting impressions&nbsp;or dollars on any of the subgroups or leaving potential sales on the table by not investing enough.</p>
<p>
Smallwood referred to this mix-modeling as finding the &ldquo;effective frequency&rdquo; for a campaign or advertiser. Again, he stressed that the mix changes from brand to brand, even product to product, and especially user to user. That&rsquo;s where Facebook comes in.</p>
<p>
Not only does Facebook have almost the widest reach of any online property, but the wealth of demographic and interest information&nbsp;that users supply&nbsp;gives the company a unique position from which to evaluate and tweak their campaigns. It&rsquo;s easy to see how this tool could be Facebook&rsquo;s biggest bait in luring TV budgets to online.</p>
<p>
As with any conversation around getting advertisers to release their reliance on clickthrough rates, Smallwood, who was joined in the interview by Facebook&rsquo;s head of measurement platforms and standards Sean Bruich, invoked TV advertising, particularly the broad reach of TV and the evolution of TV advertisers&rsquo; ability to measure reach and fine-tune frequency. Bruich cited research from in the early 1980s&nbsp;that helped&nbsp;advertisers determine the right reach for their TV campaigns&nbsp;and balance the frequency with which those ads were shown to ensure a profitable campaign.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;What we&rsquo;ve found is those truths researchers back in the &rsquo;80s found about TV seem to be true about online,&rdquo; Bruich said. That said, online, and more specifically Facebook, takes things a step further in being able to dial that reach and frequency mix for more specific audiences than available through TV.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The ROI of a campaign is made up of a lot of pieces of a campaign. We want to figure out what&rsquo;s good and fix what&rsquo;s not as good,&rdquo;&nbsp;Bruich explained.</p>
<p>
When Adweek asked Smallwood what the ROI of his talk on Wednesday would be, he&nbsp;replied simply,&nbsp;&ldquo;Success is getting [industry executives] to think beyond just ROI.&rdquo;</p>
TechnologyAdvertising Research FoundationAnalyticsBrad SmallwoodData ManagementDatalogixTim PetersonFacebookFacebook adsRe:think 2013Sean Bruichsocial dataTV advertisingWed, 20 Mar 2013 12:00:03 +0000148050 at http://www.adweek.comThe Weather Company Assembles Ad Tech's Miami Heathttp://www.adweek.com/news/technology/weather-company-assembles-ad-techs-miami-heat-147972
Tim Peterson<p>
There&rsquo;s a storm coming. Data is shifting the tides of digital advertising, buoying giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter...and The Weather Company?</p>
<p>
Like Google with its search data, Facebook with its social data, Amazon with its purchase data and Twitter with its interest data, the meteorologist Mecca is looking to establish a money-making advertising machine around its proprietary weather and geolocation data.</p>
<p>
Over the last year since <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20120124/weather-channel-hires-digital-ad-expert-as-ceo/" target="_blank">taking over</a> as chief executive, The Weather Company CEO David Kenny has pulled a Pat Riley and begun assembling ad tech&rsquo;s version of the Miami Heat. First he <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/vivakis-hecht-head-weather-channels-ad-businesses-139555" target="_blank">hired</a> VivaKi Nerve Center&rsquo;s Curt Hecht as chief global revenue officer, who then <a href="http://adage.com/article/digital/weather-company-poaches-thomson-reuters-vikram-somaya-run-division/238382/" target="_blank">signed</a> Thomson Reuters ad tech guru Vikram Somaya to head the company&rsquo;s budding ad tech arm WeatherFX. Hecht has rounded out his RTB all-star team with <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/weather-channel-hires-new-digital-ad-chief-fox-news-145484" target="_blank">Fox News Channel digital sales vet Jeremy Steinberg</a>, <a href="http://adage.com/article/digital/weather-company-nabs-ad-tech-rising-star-sara-livingston/239462/" target="_blank">Seamless digital marketer Sara Livingston</a> and most recently Varick Media Management strategy exec Jeremy Hlavacek, who started earlier this month.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We do believe that our product is different and more dynamic than Facebook or Google,&rdquo; said Hecht. &ldquo;We fit in a very unique place where weather is as important as the social graph and search box, but we&rsquo;re small enough where the product team is willing to engage marketers. It&rsquo;s a sweet spot between a long list of publishers that are vertical in nature and platform companies that mean the same to everyone. We can grow firmly in the middle and grab both.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
The WeatherFX team&rsquo;s rookie Hlavacek, an ad tech vet who worked on building <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/varick-builds-data-management-platform-145847" target="_blank">Varick&rsquo;s data management platform</a>, is wide-eyed at the platform&rsquo;s potential. &ldquo;This is next level, 2.0 weather data,&rdquo; he said. As did Hecht, he cited the ability to triangulate weather conditions from temperatures and locations to distinguish between an end-of-days 27-degree freeze in Miami from a spring-like 27 degrees in Minneapolis. &ldquo;Then you start to think about the big Fortune 50 advertisers who have locations all over the world. How are they thinking about the change that goes on in real time as it relates to their products?&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Consider pharmaceutical marketers. Regulatory restrictions bar them from targeting ads to individuals, but they could piggyback on Weather&rsquo;s data to do things like run ads in areas with high pollen counts. &ldquo;Those are the things we&rsquo;re thinking about on-network and off-network,&rdquo; said Hecht.</p>
<p>
That&#39;s a key point, a reason why WeatherFX is potentially <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKKtnSVeY9o" target="_blank">kind of a big deal</a>. This isn&rsquo;t just about selling smarter ads on Weather.com and The Weather Channel&rsquo;s mobile apps, though that&rsquo;s part of it. Notice Hecht&rsquo;s title denotes he works for The Weather Channel&rsquo;s parent company. WeatherFX has seats on a number of ad exchanges and in the second quarter will officially launch live campaigns on other publishers&rsquo; sites through its Extender product, Hecht said.</p>
<p>
While WeatherFX may be the most exciting division of The Weather Company, its best known property is still a cable channel. &ldquo;WeatherFX for cable is definitely on the road map,&rdquo; Hecht said, eyeing this year&rsquo;s Upfronts to find a couple of partners to explore the concept.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be forward thinking in how cable and technology can [converge],&rdquo; said the former Starcom MediaVest Group planner who had worked on big meaty topics like household addressability while at the media agency. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if we need to go to household, but I think we can do a lot with geo from a hyperlocal perspective.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
What WeatherFX is building is essentially a cross-channel, buy-side platform on the level of a Google or Adobe. &ldquo;The system we plan to have in place will have aspects of a trading desk, aspects of a platform and aspects of a [demand-side platform],&rdquo; Hlavacek said. Somaya is spearheading the development of this software-based marketing dashboard, one that Hecht believes will be particularly valuable for retailers, airlines, auto brands and quick-service restaurants.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what they&rsquo;re asking for, how to pull in all the things they do,&rdquo; said Hecht who was coy about if and how it would let other ad tech companies plug into the platform and vice versa. &ldquo;Vikram knows where he wants to plug in. What we won&rsquo;t give away here is a bunch of weather data,&rdquo; he said, echoing Google&rsquo;s, Facebook&rsquo;s, Amazon&rsquo;s and Twitter&rsquo;s protective data stances.</p>
<p>
Unlike the actual Miami Heat, WeatherFX is pacing its run at digital advertising titleholders. &ldquo;We are one marketer at a time. I told Vikram to get 10 marketers this year to appreciate this as a marketing platform,&rdquo; Hecht said. Late last month Somaya toured through Seattle and Silicon Valley before heading to The Weather Channel&#39;s Atlanta base.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;If we nail three of the top 10 marketers in the world and it works, people will be knocking on our doors,&rdquo; said Hecht.</p>
<p>
<em>Charlie Warzel contributed to this report.</em></p>
TechnologyAdobeAmazonCableDataDisplay advertisingTim PetersonGoogleMobile advertisingOnline advertisingThe Weather ChannelThe Weather CompanyTV advertisingTwitterMon, 18 Mar 2013 04:00:02 +0000147972 at http://www.adweek.comSamsung and Grey Poupon's Oscars Ads Win on Twitterhttp://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/samsung-and-grey-poupons-oscars-ads-win-twitter-147529
Christopher Heine<p>
Samsung&#39;s <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/samsung-crashes-oscars-six-tv-spots-and-tim-burton-147516" target="_blank">big Oscars ad buy</a> was a huge success on Twitter, according to data from <a href="http://www.adweek.com/advertising-week/social-marketers-plan-marriage-not-wedding-135531" target="_blank">Networked Insights</a>, which found that the brand had the largest volume of social media chatter and highest positive sentiment among ABC advertisers last night.</p>
<p>
<a href="http://greypouponchase.com/" target="_blank">Grey Poupon</a> also performed well on the big TV stage by going back in time with its 1980s &quot;Pardon Me&quot; theme, per the New York-based analytics firm.</p>
<p>
For Samsung, Hollywood director Tim Burton&#39;s cameo drove a substantial portion of the conversation, said Networked Insights. Burton appeared in a :90 spot that continued a &quot;Unicorn Apocalypse&quot; theme introduced earlier this year by <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/ad-day-samsung-146810" target="_blank">72andSunny</a>. The commercial&#39;s creative is designed to highlight how <a href="http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/best-craigslist-post-ever-used-samsung-galaxy-note-actually-isnt-144869" target="_blank">Samsung Galaxy</a> products can be utilized for work, in addition to play. It was one of six spots Samsung ran during the big television event.</p>
<p>
Grey Poupon&#39;s stab at going <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itHhhYxqSSE" target="_blank">retro</a> was evidently a bonafide hit with Gen Xers and other social media consumers. With the brand&#39;s agency, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/fast-chat-bob-winter-crispins-new-ecd-144558" target="_blank">Crispin Porter+Bogusky</a>, deciding to breathe life into <a href="http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/grey-poupons-pardon-me-ad-reborn-explosive-car-chase-147505" target="_blank">&quot;Pardon Me,&quot; </a>the brand received four times the social media conversations compared to its daily average, according to Networked Insights.</p>
<p>
Using its SocialSense analytics system, the company broke down 8.9 million social media conversations about Oscars advertisers, with 98 percent living on Twitter and most of the rest on Tumblr.</p>
<p>
Other key results, per Networked Insights&#39; data:</p>
<p>
&mdash;JCP had the third-most-positive social media response for its &quot;<a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/jcp-oscar-commercial-early-winner-of-the-2013-academy-awards-show?cid=rss" target="_blank">Yours Truly</a>&quot; campaign, which entailed six Oscars spots.</p>
<p>
&mdash;Apple drew the second-highest amount of chatter, but saw polarizing results.</p>
<p>
&mdash;Coca-Cola&#39;s ads performed similarly to Apple&#39;s.</p>
<p>
&mdash;McDonald&#39;s effort created the fourth-highest degree of buzz, but sentiment was middling.</p>
Advertising & Branding72andsunnyAppleCoca-ColaCrispin Porter + BoguskyGrey PouponChristopher HeineOscars 2013SamsungSamsung Galaxy S IIISocial Mediasocial media sentimentTumblrTV advertisingTwitterTwitterMon, 25 Feb 2013 17:08:46 +0000147529 at http://www.adweek.comSocial Strategies Differ for Auto Brands in Super Bowlhttp://www.adweek.com/news/technology/social-strategies-differ-auto-brands-super-bowl-146865
Christopher Heine<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/kate-upton-superbowl-hed2-2013.jpg"> <p>
The difference between an <a href="http://www.campaignsandelections.com/campaign-insider/259957/hitting-your-target-with-earned-media.thtml" target="_blank">earned-only</a> strategy in social media versus <a href="http://blogs.forrester.com/interactive_marketing/2009/12/defining-earned-owned-and-paid-media.html" target="_blank">paid-plus-earned</a> can be like the difference between the Baltimore Ravens&rsquo; methodical, <a href="http://www.nola.com/superbowl/index.ssf/2013/01/baltimore_ravens_super_bowl_20.html" target="_blank">pro-style offense</a> and the San Francisco 49ers&rsquo; quick-strike &quot;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_offense" target="_blank">pistol</a>&quot; formations. And with that in mind, football fans and/or marketing followers, Mercedes-Benz&#39;s game plan right now mimics <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Ravens" target="_blank">the </a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Ravens" target="_blank">Ravens</a> and Toyota resembles <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_49ers" target="_blank">the Niners</a>.</p>
<p>
The Super Bowl advertisers&rsquo; social strategies are interestingly different for two automotive brands, though mainly due to the fact that <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/mercedes-benz-revs-mobile-144485" target="_blank">Mercedes-Benz</a> is promoting its <a href="http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2012/11/2014-mercedes-benz-cl-class-details-released.html" target="_blank">2014 CL model</a>&mdash;which doesn&rsquo;t hit car lots in the U.S. until September. That&rsquo;s right, seven months from now. Therefore, the German automaker isn&rsquo;t supporting the TV commercial&mdash;<a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/kate-upton-scrubs-clean-path-super-bowl-mercedes-benz-146693" target="_blank">starring supermodel Kate Upton</a>&mdash;with <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/study-facebook-leads-24-sales-boost-146716" target="_blank">ads on Facebook</a> and Twitter since the marketing plan centers on maintaining a steady flow of awareness that won&rsquo;t peak until the car&rsquo;s release. It&rsquo;s instead leaning on free posts via those social sites and YouTube to reach young adults.</p>
<p>
And according to data from <a href="http://www.radian6.com/what-we-sell/marketingcloud/" target="_blank">Salesforce Marketing Cloud</a>, the strategy appears to be working. The brand has been mentioned more than any other spot so far via social media, <a href="http://www.radian6.com/blog/2013/01/mercedes-and-rim-lead-the-social-media-buzz-before-the-super-bowl/" target="_blank">per Salesforce</a>, and has a 55 percent positive sentiment.</p>
<p>
Mercedes-Benz teased out its first teaser video with Upton on Jan. 21. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a very good way to build views and buzz prior to the Super Bowl,&rdquo; said <a href="http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/about_us/press/pressId-9e738e6f00f35310VgnVCM2000007d184335____" target="_blank">Bernie Glaser</a>, vp of marketing for Mercedes-Benz USA, when asked about the teaser strategy. Glaser&rsquo;s team looks forward to using digital data from the Super Bowl effort to inform future promotions during the remaining slow build-up they must orchestrate from February to Labor Day.</p>
<p>
For Toyota, conversely, the time is now while promoting its <a href="http://www.toyota.com/upcoming-vehicles/rav4/" target="_blank">2013 RAV4 model</a> with a commercial starring <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/bang-bang-pow-pow-tbs-wins-quarterly-ratings-race-139243" target="_blank"><em>The Big Bang Theory</em></a> actress <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/kaley-cuoco-grants-wishes-toyotas-super-bowl-teaser-146743" target="_blank">Kaley Cuoco</a>. It&rsquo;s teased out a 60-second video, but so far has only generated roughly one-third the online mentions compared to Mercedes-Benz, per Salesforce.</p>
<p>
Toyota hopes to spark more digital discussion in the coming days when it&rsquo;s running Facebook ads and <a href="http://www.adweek.com/topic/twitter-ads" target="_blank">Promoted Tweets</a> (see ad below) leading up to Super Bowl XLVII. The brand is also buying a <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/twitter-hikes-promoted-trend-super-bowl-146684" target="_blank">Promoted Trend</a> this week.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s so much that&rsquo;s going on in social media,&rdquo; said <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/russ-koble/5/244/78" target="_blank">Russ Koble</a>, advertising and planning manager for Toyota USA. &ldquo;By just putting out tweets from Toyota USA and through other channels, that helps on the free side. But buying the paid social ads helps that much more.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Bridgett Judd, group director of digital innovation at the brand&rsquo;s agency, Saatchi &amp; Saatchi L.A., and her team are deeming the January portion of Toyota&rsquo;s Super Bowl campaign a success. Using Cuoco as the point person, from Jan. 2 through Jan. 12, they encouraged consumers to submit photos via Twitter, Facebook and Instagram with the hashtag <a href="http://tweetwood.com/KaleyCuoco/tweet/288371605728526336" target="_blank">#wishgranted</a> for the chance to appear in the big game spot with the actress. &ldquo;Wish granted&rdquo; is a central theme to Toyota&rsquo;s big game ad.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Our intention is a social experience,&rdquo; Judd said. &ldquo;And we&rsquo;ve seen some amazing engagement. We&rsquo;ve seen thousands participate.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, Toyota is also the official sponsor of <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57566341-93/super-bowl-xlvii-online-streaming-apps-and-more/" target="_blank">CBS&rsquo; online stream</a> of the Feb. 3 event. And its promotions for the RAV4 certainly won&rsquo;t end after the game, as the brand plans to run an integrated campaign to push the model during the rest of 2013.</p>
<p>
But unlike Mercedes-Benz, Toyota hopes to see the sales meter move in the near term to justify the <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/01/27/super-bowl-car-ads-buzz/1868171/" target="_blank">$8 million, 60-second spot</a> that&rsquo;s set to air in the Super Bowl&rsquo;s first quarter.</p>
<p>
On the other hand, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/kate-upton-scrubs-clean-path-super-bowl-mercedes-benz-146693" target="_blank">Mercedes-Benz</a> and its agency, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/topic/merkley-partners" target="_blank">Merkley + Partners</a>, will pay special attention to Upton&rsquo;s effect on social buzz stats&mdash;or &ldquo;talk value&rdquo; as Glaser from Mercedes put it&mdash;for the next several weeks.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p>
Watch our big game day commercial featuring the all-new 2013 RAV4 with @<a href="https://twitter.com/kaleycuoco">kaleycuoco</a> <a href="http://t.co/OlSf85YT" title="http://bit.ly/wishgranted">bit.ly/wishgranted</a>! RT if you like. <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23wishgranted">#wishgranted</a></p>
&mdash; Toyota USA (@Toyota) <a href="https://twitter.com/Toyota/status/295939045652062208">January 28, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>TechnologyAutomotiveautomotive marketingbrandingCarsMercedesChristopher HeineMerkley + PartnersSaatchiSaatchi & SaatchiSaatchi & Saatchi LASuper BowlToyotaTV advertisingTue, 29 Jan 2013 18:12:00 +0000146865 at http://www.adweek.comNielsen: Global Ad Spend Up 3.1% to $128 Billionhttp://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/nielsen-global-ad-spend-31-128-billion-141784
Tim Peterson<p>
Between the Olympics and the U.S. presidential election, 2012 is a biggie for brands, so much so that they got out of hibernation early. The first quarter is usually quiet for advertisers, but the period&#39;s global ad spend increased by 3.1 percent from last year, according to Nielsen&rsquo;s <a href="http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/global-internet-ad-spend-sees-double-digit-growth-outpaces-other-media/" target="_blank">Global AdPulse Report</a> released today. The research firm said the year got off to a slow start but hit $128 billion by the end of March, with that month in particular jumping 4.5 percent year-over-year.</p>
<p>
The Middle East and Africa led all regions with 23.3 percent year-over-year spend growth, followed by Latin America at 9.6 percent. The U.S. lagged behind with a 2.2 percent increase, which was still better than the situation in Europe. That region&mdash;beset by Greece&rsquo;s and Spain&rsquo;s financial woes&mdash;saw ad spend drop 1.4 percent compared with last year.</p>
<p>
Internet advertising grew by 12.1 percent, the most of any media channel, but still only accounted for 2.6 percent of the quarter&#39;s total ad spend (equivalent to outdoor advertising&rsquo;s spend share). Meanwhile TV dollars rose by 2.8 percent and ate up 61.9 percent of total ad spend.</p>
<p>
Nielsen&rsquo;s findings lend new evidence in the debate over print advertising&rsquo;s decline. While ad spend on magazines fell by 1.4 percent year-over-year, newspapers earned a 3.1 percent increase. But that&rsquo;s worldwide&mdash;Latin America saw magazines and newspapers jump by 7.6 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively&mdash;meanwhile in the U.S. magazines dropped by 5.0 percent and newspapers followed with a 2.1 percent decline. Newspapers toppled magazines in terms of ad spend share, with the former notching 20 percent versus the latter&rsquo;s 7.6 percent.&nbsp;</p>
Advertising & Brandingad spendingInternetNielsenOnline advertisingTV advertisingTue, 10 Jul 2012 16:53:08 +0000141784 at http://www.adweek.comAnalyst: Affordable Care Just Created a Huge Ad Categoryhttp://www.adweek.com/news/television/analyst-affordable-care-just-created-huge-ad-category-141513
Sam Thielman<p>
It&#39;s official: the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare, depending where you sit on the political spectrum) has been upheld by the Supreme Court as of this morning. While the announcement certainly <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/28/cnn-supreme-court-health-care-individual-mandate_n_1633950.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HP%2FPolitics+(Politics+on+The+Huffington+Post)" target="_blank">wasn&#39;t the proudest moment</a> for cable news networks (easy on the trigger there, fellas!), it&#39;s likely to be very good indeed for television as a whole.</p>
<p>
Pivotal Research senior researcher Brian Wieser (formerly the top forecaster at Interpublic) has a solid <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXM3z-Omhzg" target="_blank">predictive track record</a>, and he&#39;s extremely bullish on the possibility of a rapidly expanding healthcare category on television and in other consumer media as the hotly contested individual mandate becomes a reality in 2014. Individual healthcare policies are the exception, rather than the norm, but if everyone in the country is required to have some kind of coverage, the number of those policies sold is going to skyrocket. That, said Wieser, means new business models.</p>
<p>
What will probably happen at first, according to the analyst, is that a single company will grab a lot of attention when it rolls out an effective campaign. &quot;A reference point could be the auto insurance market until the last decade,&quot; said Wieser. &quot;It was a lot of smaller companies, and then Geico catalyzed the entire sector. It will make a huge difference in market share.&quot;</p>
<p>
Since health insurers market mostly (sometimes exclusively) to businesses, there&#39;s a steep learning curve ahead for big insurance companies that don&#39;t yet have a consumer-friendly infrastructure. &quot;These marketers are going to have to reorient themselves from being B2B brands to being consumer brands,&quot; said Wieser.</p>
<p>
And it&#39;s worth noting that some of them <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/cigna" target="_blank">have already started to do just that</a>. Last April, Cigna bgan its pivot toward consumer-focused advertising by hiring Hill Holiday to handle its needs in that department; the company also rolled out its &quot;Go You&quot; campaign a few months later (see link above). Meanwhile, WellPoint has <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/deutsch-adds-wellpoint-97953" target="_blank">hired</a> Interpublic agency Deutsch, also with a conumser focus in mind, and even earlier&mdash;in May 2010&mdash;<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100503007098/en/Humana-Selects-Omnicom-Group-National-Advertising-Agency" target="_blank">Humana retained Omnicom</a>.</p>
<p>
&quot;I&#39;d be surprised if you see them in next year&#39;s upfront, but I think you&#39;ll see a little in the fall of 2013, more in 2014, and a lot more in 2015,&quot; said Wieser. Still, health insurance advertising increases may be a safe bet, but there&#39;s no guarantee that it will be a net gain of the $1 billion-plus that Wieser predicts the market will eventually reach. &quot;Health insurance goes up and maybe it makes it more difficult for soft drink manufacturers who were, uh, on the other side of the health proposition,&quot; said Wieser with a laugh.</p>
<p>
It&#39;s also probably safe to expect the larger insurers to start retaining the larger advertising agencies; consumer ad spending hasn&#39;t yet been a priority, but the Kaiser Family Foundation (a nonpartisan nonprofit that lobbies on behalf of the health insurance industry and is formerly affiliated with Kaiser Permanente) predicts that the number of individual policy holders in the U.S. will at least double from 14 million to 28 million by 2016.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
TelevisionAffordable Care ActBrian Wieserhealth insuranceTelevisionTV advertisingThu, 28 Jun 2012 17:51:50 +0000141513 at http://www.adweek.com